User:Katharine Franz/sandbox

= Sport Psychology =

Article evaluation

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 * All relevant but a lot of history
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
 * Sources only go up to 2014, so current research is missing
 * The results for AASP planning committee
 * Approaches under Personality are not related to sports
 * More on coaches
 * Personality tests
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 * More sport specific info
 * Gender specific info
 * Sport Injury
 * Some sections are choppy: youth sport
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 * More info on youth sport and external factors
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Editing Subsections
** Italicized taken from original Sport psychology article

''Sport psychology is an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from many related fields including biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology and psychology. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and physical factors. '' Sport psychologists teach cognitive and behavioral strategies to athletes in order to improve their experience and performance in sports. In addition to instruction and training of psychological skills for performance improvement, applied sport psychology may include work with athletes, coaches, and parents regarding injury, rehabilitation, communication, team building, and career transitions.

Clinical sports psychologist
Clinical sport psychologists obtain a doctoral degree in clinical or counseling psychology. They meet with athletes individually and in group settings. Areas of expertise include performance and clinical issues. Performance skills include goal setting, arousal control, imagery, attention control, and self-talk. Clinical issues include but are not limited to depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse. ''They are able to prescribe medications or other forms of treatment to address clinical issues. A non-clinical sports psychologist might refer one of their clients to a clinical psychologist if it is thought that the athlete might need additional help beyond talk therapy .''

Personality
There are various personality characteristics that have been found to be consistent among elite athletes. These include but are not limited to mental toughness, self-efficacy, arousal, motivation, commitment, competitiveness, and control. Mental toughness i''s a psychological edge that helps one perform at a high level consistently. Mentally tough athletes exhibit four characteristics: a strong self-belief (confidence) in their ability to perform well, an internal motivation to be successful, the ability to focus one's thoughts and feelings without distraction, and composure under pressure''. ''Self-efficacy is a belief that one can successfully perform a specific task. In sport, self-efficacy has been conceptualized as sport-confidence. However, efficacy beliefs are specific to a certain task (e.g., I believe I can successfully make both free throws), whereas confidence is a more general feeling (e.g., I believe I will have a good game today). Arousal refers to one's physiological and cognitive activation. While many researchers have explored the relationship between arousal and performance, one unifying theory has not yet been developed. However, research does suggest perception of arousal (i.e., as either good or bad) is related to performance. Motivation can be defined broadly as the will to perform a given task. People who play or perform for internal reasons, such as enjoyment and satisfaction, are said to be intrinsically motivated, while people who play for external reasons, such as money or attention from others, are extrinsically motivated''. Commitment refers to the dedication to continuing a sport from early development into a high level of sport expertise. Competitiveness is the ability to challenge opponents with an aim of success. Control is the ability to separate and focus on different events occurring in one's life, both within and outside of athletics.

Additionally, there are specific psychological skills that are ingrained in personality that are possessed at higher levels in elite athletes than the typical person. These include arousal regulation, goal setting, imagery, pre-performance routines, and self-talk, which are discussed further under Commonly used techniques.

Youth sport
Excessive demands from parents may also contribute to burnout. Coach behavior is a major contributor to how youth athletes experience sports. In research directed at coding behavioral styles of coaches, it has been found that children are more accurate at perceiving coaching behaviors than the coach. This lack of awareness contributes heavily to negative athlete behaviors and burnout.

Coaching[edit source]
''While winning is the overall goal of sports competitions regardless of the motivational climate, a task-orientation emphasizes building skill, improvement, giving complete effort, and mastering the task at hand (i.e., self-referenced goals), while an ego-orientation emphasizes demonstrating superior ability, competition, and does not promote effort or individual improvement (i.e., other-referenced goals). ''A task-oriented climate has been found to develop a greater intrinsic, self-determined motivation in athletes compared to an ego-oriented climate. Additionally, an environment with self-improvement as the primary focus creates greater intrinsic motivation that one with winning as the focus.

''Effective coaching practices explore the best ways coaches can lead and teach their athletes. For examples, researchers may study the most effective methods for giving feedback, rewarding and reinforcing behavior, communicating, and avoiding self-fulfilling prophecies in their athletes.'' Coaches influence motivation of athletes mainly through interactional behavior with athletes. Coaches can be perceived by their athletes as autonomy-supporting or controlling. Autonomy-supporting coaches provide structure, as well as being involved and caring towards the athletes. Coaches that are perceived to be controlling instill less intrinsic motivation in their athletes. Motivation is maximized when a coach is perceived to be autonomy-supporting, while providing a high level of training and instruction. Due to these findings, interventions that sport psychologist implement are focused in increasing autonomy-supportive behaviors of coaches.

Coaching philosophy refers to a set of beliefs intrinsic to a coach that guide his or her behavior and experience. The philosophy should facilitate self-awareness, prioritize coaching objectives, and be athlete-centered. Having a philosophy central to the individual will allow a coach to react more efficiently to fast-paced decisions during sports in a systematic and thoughtful way. A coach must be self-aware of their own values in order to monitor if these values align with their thoughts and actions. Often, getting feedback from trusted outside sources is helpful in developing this self-awareness. A coach must also determine and prioritize coaching objectives between winning, athlete well-being, and time outside of the sport. An athlete-centered philosophy emphasizes learning and improvement over winning, which puts the athlete development first. This philosophy should be dynamic as both societal and coaching experiences occur and change.

Communication style is an important concept for sport psychologists to develop with coaches. Communication is a constant role for coaches directed to athletes, parents, administrators, other coaches, media, and supporters. It mainly comes in the forms of speaking, writing, body language, and listening. Verbal communication occurs through spoken word; however, nonverbal communication contributes hugely to how people perceive a coaches communication. Non-verbal communication comes through actions, facial expressions, body position, and gestures. Coaches must be aware of the words, tone, and behaviors that they use. Research has found that athletes respond best to positive feedback, specific technical instruction, and general encouragement. Sport psychologists focus on developing coaching communication styles that are direct, complete, immediate, and clear, while also being supportive, specific to the athlete, and verbally and non-verbally congruent.

''Coaches have become more open to the idea of having a good professional athlete -coach relationship. This relationship will be the basis for an effective performance setting.''

Zone of optimal functioning theory
''This theory looks at each type each athlete and what level of arousal they need to perform best. This suggests that each athlete requires their own level of stress and arousal to feel motivated and perform well. This theory is specific but difficult to quantify''. One proposed model for optimal functioning was proposed by Yuri Hanin. This model focuses on the interaction between natural emotional experience and the repetition of athletics. The combination of these concepts creates an emotional pattern that is stable to each individual. It takes into account positive, negative, optimal, and dysfunctional emotional experiences and how they effect athletic performance. Peak performance is when an athlete experiences this zone of optimal functioning. This stage is described as including dissociation and intense concentration to the point of being unaware of one's surroundings, lack of fatigue and pain, perceptual time-slowing, and feeling power and control. This state cannot be forced to happen, although athletes can develop control over several psychological variables that contribute to achieving peak performance. Sport psychologists try to give athletes the tools to have more control over reaching this peak performance level. These interventions targets controlling state anxiety and arousal level for the individual and task needs to maximize performance abilities. Some of the strategies used include cognitive reappraisal, breathing and relaxation, and hypnosis.

Goal setting
Having challenging short-term goals will remove the repetitiveness of easy goals and will give one an edge when striving for their long-term goals. There are three major types of goals within sport psychology: outcome goals, performance goals, and process goals.

Types of Goals
Outcome goals describe how an individual or team aim to compare to the other competitors. This type of goal is unique because of its nature being ingrained in social comparison. Winning is the most common outcome goal. This type of goal is the least effective because it depends on so many factors that are extrinsic to the individual.

Performance goals are subjective goals that are concerned with personal achievement in an end result. These products of performance are based on standard that is subjective for the individual and usually based on numeric measurements. Examples include finishing a race in a certain time, jumping a certain height, or completing a specific amount of repetitions.

Process goals are focused on the process of performance. These include execution of behaviors used in the activity of getting to the final product of performance. Examples include breathing control, maintaining body posture, or use of imagery.

Biofeedback
Biofeedback uses external technology to measure and make an individual aware of internal physiological processes. There is some evidence that physiological measures, such as heart rate or brain waves, appear to be different in elite athletes than that of the typical person. This is a field that should be further looked into; however, it could have beneficial implications for athletes to be able to monitor and control these physiological measures to maximize performance.

Modeling
Modeling is a form of observational learning where an athlete observes another individual around the same level of skill learning perform sport related movements and receive feedback. This has been shown help modify athletes' thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in beneficial ways. In order for this form of learning to work the athlete must be motivated, attentive, able to recall, and willing to try to mimic their observation of the model.

Personality Characteristics
It is beneficial for sport psychologists to understand how athlete personalities systematically vary depending on type of sport played. Research on athlete personalities allows professionals to put in the maximum investment and select specific sports due to a background understanding of the dynamic that they are intervening in. Personality characteristics differ between team versus individual sports, as well as different types of sports.

Big 5 Personality Traits
Research on the big five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) as well as some other characteristics have differentiated personalities of athletes in individual sports compared to team sports. Athletes in individual sports scored higher on measures of conscientiousness and autonomy. Team-sport athletes scored higher on measures of agreeableness and sociotrophy. These characteristics can be explained by the demands of each sport type. Individual sports require athletes to be self-reliant, while team sports require group cohesion in order to be successful. Athletes participating in both team and individual sports score equally on measures of neuroticism, extraversion, and openness. These traits help provide a personality profile for sport psychologist seeking to work with certain types of sports.

Sensation Seeking
Sensation seeking is a phenomenon where an individual participates in novel, complex or intense activities with higher amounts of risks in order to satisfy their personal need for arousal. This is one area where personalities in different types of sports can be differentiated. High sensation seekers tend to participate in extreme sports, such as sky diving, car racing, scuba diving, whitewater sports, and skiing. These sports involve intense speed and excitement as well as high risks. Individuals with a moderate level of sensation seeking tend to participate in common sports that are unpredictable but also minimally risky. Some examples are basketball, baseball, volleyball, and golf. Low sensation seekers participate in sports that require large amounts of training and consistency, such as long-distance running, gymnastics, or swimming. This is one area of personality type that differs for different sports.

Psychopathology
Different categories of sports display different mental health profiles. Overall, female athletes are more likely to develop a psychopathology, such as anxiety, depression, or eating disorders. The only problem that is more prevalent in male athletes is drug and alcohol use. These are consistent with the general public, as well. Anxiety, depression, and sleep problems are most prevalent in highly aesthetic sports, such as ballet or gymnastics. These are least prevalent in high risk sports and team ball sports. Eating disorders are more prevalent in athletes than the general public. For women eating disorders are highly prevalent in aesthetic, racing, and fine motor sports, and least prevalent in team ball sports. Eating disorders are most prevalent for men in high combat and contact sports. There are more problematic eating behaviors in sports that place and emphasis on thinness and weight-dependence. This demonstrates that mental health problems are highly related to the demands that specific sports place on the athletes involved.